Thursday, March 6, 2008

Week #7, Thing #16 - Wiki

My first reaction after reading about wikis is to say, "Boy, it's a good thing I am taking this class!" I had been telling everybody how bad wikis were because they didn't come from reputable sources and to stay away from them. I always thought that the information on the wikis was mostly unreliable because anybody can put anything on it. I found out by exploring the sites in this excercise, that while it's true that anyone can submit to a wiki, their post can be edited by others who usually will correct erroneous information. There are some wikis that can only be available for editing and posting to registered members. Those types of wikis would be good for schools. I noticed that some entries on Wikipedia might have a warning at the beginning that no sources were sited and to be aware that the information contained in that particular wiki might not be authoratative.
There is a teacher at my school who is very knowledgeable about technology and really wants to incorporate it into her curriculum. I am excited to collaborate with her on using a wiki for her class. We will design a lesson plan where students will be in groups and have group projects. Each student within the group will be responsible for one part of the assignment. The students will post to the wiki adding and editing to each others. They will create study questions and discussion topics based on information from the wikis.

I would like opinions on which wiki site is good for shool lessons? I will need to get one unblocked by the district.

1 comment:

librarymum said...

Hi!
You asked about wiki sites that are good for education. I have been using pbwiki (like the calcurriculum wiki we use for this tutorial) for a school site, and it's easy and quick to use at school. Wikispaces offers free expanded sites to teachers and it is easy to use. This thing has given you a look at several different sites and I think the best thing you can do is try some of them out with a lesson or presentation you are preparing and see how the different ones work. Even if you have to try them out on your own time, you will then be prepared to ask for your favorite to be unblocked. Let us know how it goes and which one you like the best.